Melbourne Retreat – Day 3 and 4

Day 3

Queen Victoria Market

This is the best place to buy souvenirs in Melbourne. It is like Paddy’s Market but in Melbourne. We bought ourselves some souvenir including a fridge magnet.

DFO in South Wharf

Melbourne is relatively popular as a shopping destination in the entire Australia. It has many DFOs – Direct Factory Outlets. We ourselves went to experience one which is the DFO in South Wharf.

We bought a daily tram ticket which costed about $7.00.

At the DFO, mostly what we did was window shop. We did buy a few small things though. I found most of the brands and products at the DFO quite cheap compared to other shopping malls.

Hang out at Azizulhasni Awang and Tya’s place

In the evening, we went to visit Azizulhasni Awang, the Malaysia track cyclist who lived with his wife in Melbourne. His wife, Tya was my batchmate in IIUM.

Together with other friends who came over, we had dinner together while watching Ombak Rindu till late night.

I’d like to thank them for the great food and hospitality.

Day 4 – The last day

It was the last day of our Melbourne trip. Our ‘tour guide’, Tasnim took us for a bus ride to explore almost all of the tourist attractions in Melbourne.

The tourist shuttle bus, which is free, has 13 stops all around Melbourne city. It is like a hop-on, hop-off bus where the driver will explain about every landmark and notable building in the areas.
These are some of the places that we’ve been to.

Federation Square

This is a must visit tourist attraction in Melbourne. There are many uniquely designed buildings with mesmerizing interiors.

Hosier Lane – The Graffiti street

It’s hard to see a wall full of graffiti in Melbourne until our tour guide brought us to Hosier Lane. Along the street you can see colourful bombs and various kinds of graffiti continuing on the facade of the cafes which are on one side of the street.

Museum of Melbourne

We only had the chance to witness the museum and the awesomeness of the architectural design from outside. The admission is not free and I guess we really need to have a good 3-4 hours if we want to enjoy the exhibition. Next time, we’re sure to allocate time to visit the museum!

Lazzat – Halal Malaysian restaurant at Lygon

It is located within walking distance from the museum. Lazzat is one of the Malaysian restaurants here, providing ‘Nasi Campur’, various types of fried rice and other menus and owned by a friendly Malay. We had our Malaysian curries with white rice for lunch and got the famous no-to-be-missed gelato ice cream, from Il Dolce a few blocks away.

Docklands

This is our last destination of our trip. Docklands is one of the newest province in Melbourne and it has a shopping centre called Harbour Town. I told you Melbourne has heaps of shopping centres. But since this place is new, not many people are around and they are still trying to persuade people to come here.

We took the last shuttle bas and tram back to our place. We quickly loaded our stuff and headed to Tullamarine airport. After the one and a half hour flight, we safely arrived back in Newcastle at 10pm.

We came to Melbourne without the intention to shop around, more to visiting friends. Maybe one day, we’ll come back here. It is such an awesome shopping and dining destination compared to Sydney.